An essential counterpoint to 'Fire and Fury'

On a Tuesday afternoon in February 2022 I happened to be in Wellington. My route home took me via the bottom end of town, through the precinct occupied by Parliament and the Old Government Buildings. To my surprise, I found my way blocked by protest vehicles.

There had been chatter on the radio that morning about an anti-vaccination mandate protest convoy arriving in town, but I expected it would be over by afternoon and the streets would be clear again. I was wrong.

I found a way through the congestion and carried on, assuming the protesters were just letting off steam and would soon go back whence they had come, wherever that was.

Wrong again. They had other ideas. Three weeks later they were still there, having taken up residence in what they called Camp Freedom.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only New Zealander to be taken aback by the scale and resolve of the protest or the depth of the protesters’ grievances. I think the entire country, police and government included, was caught off-guard.

Yet it’s clear from independent film maker Gaylene Barnes’ documentary River of Freedom that the anti-vax protest had been gathering unstoppable momentum long before it rolled into Wellington. For me the most striking scenes in the film were not the ones showing the violent, fiery climax to the occupation at Parliament. Dramatic though those were, we had seen them before. No, I was most struck by scenes we hadn’t seen; namely, the ones that showed enthusiastic crowds lining the protest routes all the way from Cape Reinga and Bluff to the capital.

Even out in the countryside, boisterous supporters – too numerous by far to be dismissed as a mere rent-a-mob display – turned out in force to wave placards and cheer as the convoy rolled past. Motorway overbridges were shown jammed with well-wishers, even in foul weather.

Clearly, something unprecedented was happening out in heartland New Zealand, but where were the mainstream media? Precious little of this was reported in the press or shown on the TV news. To all intents and purposes, the rolling protest was rendered invisible. It was as if the media had conspired to ignore it (yes, I’m using that c-word), or at the very least to play it down as the work of an inconsequential fringe element and not to be taken seriously.

Small wonder, then, that when protest vehicles choked the streets around Parliament, the public wondered where the hell they had sprung from. And smaller wonder still that the protesters concluded very early in the piece that the media were out to marginalise them. There has rarely been a more graphic demonstration of the gulf between the provincial heartland, where the protest had its roots, and the effete metropolitan elites as represented by the mainstream media.

Two things were happening here – or in terms of media attention, not happening.

The so-called Freedom Convoy appeared to be cleverly orchestrated and co-ordinated, although River of Freedom doesn’t explain who initiated and drove it. (The conspiracy fantasists at the Disinformation Project and their equally excitable cheerleaders at Stuff and RNZ would say it was all the work of malevolvent far-Right agitators, which becomes even more preposterous after a viewing of the film. That being said, a bit more transparency might have helped offset the more lurid accusations.)

Social media platforms were used to spread the word, but very little of the rumbling discontent over vaccination mandates seeped into the wider public consciousness via mainstream channels, and that which did was characterised as loony, dangerous, or both.

The regrettable result has been a hardening and a deepening of the divide between “establishment” New Zealand – the New Zealand of the main political parties, the bureaucracy, big business, academia and (crucially) the information gatekeepers of the MSM – and another, very different New Zealand inhabited by people whose multiple grievances and frustrations found an outlet in opposition to the authoritarian mandate.

I wrote at the time: “A fascinating political and sociological fault line has opened up – one that defies the normal understanding of New Zealand’s political dynamics. People at the bottom of the heap, as political scientist Bryce Edwards describes them – many of them working-class and provincial, with no formal organisational structure – have risen up in defiance of the all-powerful political class, the urban elites who are accustomed to calling the shots and controlling political discourse.” I think that analysis still holds true.

Bleakly depressing though the prospect may be, Winston Peters (or "Sir" Winston, as he's referred to in the film’s credits) is now poised to harness some of the rage and discontent that was left to fester unresolved after police broke up the Camp Freedom protest. Several political parties sprang up in the aftermath of the protests, among them Matt King’s Democracy NZ and Liz Gunn’s NZ Loyal, but only Peters and New Zealand First have the organisational infrastructure, the boots on the ground, the experience and the opportunistic cunning to exploit the opening.

Peters thus stands to collect an electoral dividend from being the only mainstream politician willing to meet the Camp Freedom protesters and hear their stories. As River of Freedom reminds us, National and ACT MPs opposed aspects of Labour’s lockdown regime in parliamentary debate but couldn’t or wouldn’t risk tainting themselves by going out and talking to the campers. They may have been New Zealand citizens with the same rights and entitlements as any others, but politically speaking the protesters were regarded as untouchables. In the film, their resentment at being treated by the politicians as pariahs is matched only by their animosity toward the journalists who shunned them.

My first attempt at seeing River of Freedom several weeks ago was unsuccessful; for the first time in my life, I was turned away because a movie was sold out. After spending the past two weeks out of the country I thought I’d missed out altogether, but I finally caught up with it yesterday at the Screening Room in Masterton. I see from Graeme Tuckett’s review for Stuff that the film attracted full houses in Wellington too.

Tuckett’s review, incidentally, was commendably fair, considering his own employers had produced the ludicrously overwrought and shamefully unbalanced Fire and Fury. River of Freedom (the title was inspired by disgraced former cabinet minister Michael Wood’s reference to the protest as a “river of filth”) is unbalanced too, as you’d expect of a film made from a standpoint that’s openly sympathetic to the protesters, but it doesn’t indulge in hysterical conspiracy theories and it largely leaves viewers to form their own conclusions. Perhaps its greatest fault (and one that Tuckett pointed out) is that it avoids any mention of the aggressive and hostile conduct that gave the protest a bad name.

To me, one of the film’s most compelling voices is that of Alistair Boyce, owner of the Backbencher Pub opposite Parliament. Camp Freedom was right outside his doors, placing Boyce involuntarily in the thick of the action. His business inevitably suffered and he saw some of the protesters at their worst, yet Boyce – who described himself as pro-vaccination but anti-mandate – was sympathetic to their cause. If only the politicians had taken the trouble to listen to them, he reckoned, the occupation could have been over in five days.

I recommend River of Freedom to anyone who can find a movie theatre where it’s still screening. It’s too long, at two hours 34 minutes, but it’s well made (the cameras luxuriate in some exquisite landscape shots as they follow the convoy through the country) and there are even flashes of humour, as in the scene where a worker arrives at the protest camp to empty the portaloos and pleads with the cameraman: “Don’t take a picture of me – my mother thinks I’m a professor”. But most importantly, people should see River of Freedom simply because it’s an essential counterpoint to the distortions of Fire and Fury.

Guest post: Stuff's 'Fire and Fury' documentary forsakes truth-seeking journalism for the predetermined story

By FORREST CHAMBERS*

All our arguments are about the Story.  What story do we believe? Who is doing right, and who is doing wrong? Where is the story going, and what should we do as participants in the story?

Stuff's Fire and Fury tells a story: some people in New Zealand have become sucked into dangerous right-wing political extremism, and the anti-Covid-vax and anti-mandate movements have really just been portals into far-Right darkness. Once we have had an anti-mandate protest, the story goes, we will have Trump-crazed rioters storming Parliament and killing politicians (cut to scenes of the January 6 Capitol riots).

It seems that Covid-19 and vaccination has now become a signifier for “what side are you on?” – that is, “What story do you believe?” If you don't trust Pfizer, that means you don't trust the government, so that means you must be extreme Right. Right? And vice-versa. This is a dangerous oversimplification.

I have watched the Covid phenomenon unfold and seen the unprecedented and outrageous clampdown on freedom of thought and belief.  When I see doctors, scientists and ordinary lay people with reasonably derived questions and opinions censored, de-platformed and suspended on social media, I can see there is something terribly wrong.

I would have thought Fire and Fury “journalist” Paula Penfold would be curious about the unfolding Covid story as the data emerges (for example, reports of adverse reactions, rising excess death rates, declining birth rates) rather than simply taking sides and describing any Pfizer injection sceptics merely as victims of misinformation and pawns of the far Right.  There are so many doctors now speaking out.  Dr Dave Cartland, a British GP, is just one example: https://metatron.substack.com/p/breaking-the-silence. He tells his story of going from accepting what he was told, getting vaccinated, then seeing a sharp rise in “unexplained” and unusual health conditions in his work; complete denial that vaccination could possibly be linked; censorship of free medical discussion; fear among colleagues; and eventually his decision to speak up, questioning the vaccine narrative (and losing his job). But rather than consider what he has to say, according to the logic of the story: if he is sceptical of the official Covid-19 vaccine strategy, he must be lumped in with the far-Right league of miscreants. Almost every day there are more doctors and public figures trying to “walk back” their initial support for the vaccines and lockdowns. Are they joining the far Right? No!

Yes, there are far-Right bad actors out there, fomenting hatred and violence, and they should be diminished.  I guess the question is: what is the best way to do that?

Perhaps we need to consider the question, what is their story? It is clear at this point in the global technological society that corporate media giants and other “powers that be” undeniably can and do exert social manipulation and control. (I guess the question is: just how much are we manipulated and controlled? The work of the eminent psychologist Dr Robert Epstein is very disturbing.) 

Most likely, politicians must co-operate, or they won’t be politicians for very long.  The way I’m hearing the “far-Right” ranting, it seems they are aware of manipulation and control and want to fight it.  Obviously, some of their theories about the “deep state” really go off the deep end (adrenochrome, anyone?), but their basic intuition is right: people are being manipulated and controlled.  Unfortunately, their response and tactics (take down the government) are completely wrong. 

Of course, the mainstream media are implicated in this story of manipulation and control.  I had family and friends at the mandate protest and closely watched the reporting which was so biased against it (with a few notable exceptions, like the political scientist Dr Bryce Edwards, who, after he gave sympathetic reportage, had to weather a social media pile-on).  I watched Chantelle Baker’s livestream of the police-induced riot and listened to RNZ at the same time. It was clear which one was most truthful (Chantelle’s). The MSM have their story to tell and will tell it, selecting “facts” and incidents to support it. That is why the people at the protest didn’t welcome MSM reporters.

Out of the thousands of people present at the protest, two were chosen for the so-called documentary who looked/sounded like gullible Kiwis who had swallowed Counterspin hype. They were chosen to fit the “story”.

At one point in Fire and Fury, the three Voices for Freedom (VFF) women leaders were equated with women of the “Nazi programme” because they were “wholesome” (gasp!). This would be laughable if it wasn’t so provocatively offensive and plainly wrong.  Would the VFF three have more credibility (i.e. be less like Nazis) if they were less wholesome? It seems they can't win either way. Too wholesome? Nazis! Unwholesome? Well, say no more... 

While on the topic of Nazis, let’s remember that the Nazis used “'modern medical science” to justify the separating out of Jews, putting them behind a wall in the early days of the Warsaw Ghetto. This was justified by the “scientific” belief (story) that Jews carried typhus, and the best way to protect the “innocent public” was through segregation. Just like the vaccine mandates, which decreed that our teenage daughters could not attend dance class because that would put everyone at risk (justified by modern medical science).  It is only a short step then to scapegoating and hating a group of people you have “blamed” and ostracised.  Sound familiar? This is what the mandate protest was about: division and hatred caused by a government policy.  Not far-Right nonsense (although I agree there were far-Right activists trying to capitalise on the collective disgust at government policy).

And if the “Nazi” accusations aren't convincing in a “documentary”, add a bit of spooky atmospheric music and high production values to sway the audience.  Just like ... oh yes, it was the Nazis who pioneered “state of the art” media and propaganda films to great effect (see Leni Riefenstahl). What else reminds us of Nazi tactics?  Monopolising and controlling all sources of information, quarantining'/segregating/scapegoating, denouncing and firing critics, government and big business working together, etc.  Unfortunately, accusations of being “Nazi” have a dangerous tendency to boomerang back.

A couple of last points: “personal anecdotes” (such as: “my uncle got sick after the injection”) were dismissed as just another kind of “fake information” designed to con people into the wrong beliefs. Which prompts the question: how can journalism proceed if anecdotes are now off-limits? Or how, indeed, can we make sense of the world without listening to anecdotes? 

A number of years ago, Fire and Fury presenter Paula Penfold was curious about anecdotes and investigated possible adverse reactions to Gardasil (a mass vaccination programme for teenage girls intended to reduce HPV and cervical cancer). But in this current climate, she would not be able to run a story on Covid vaccines as she did on Gardasil without becoming a victim of the “Covid vaccine sceptics are actually Right-wing puppets” story. Truth-seeking journalism has been sacrificed to the predetermined story.

It would take a truly courageous journalist to go beyond the “received and approved” story.  But they seem to be very rare birds these days. 

*Forrest Chambers is a prison chaplain who lives in Levin.

A few thoughts on Stuff's Fire and Fury documentary

I didn’t intend to watch Stuff’s video documentary Fire and Fury, but after reading Stuff columnist Jenny Nicholls’ gushing review (headlined “Fire and Fury documentary shows journalism at the peak of its powers”, and of course given great prominence on the Stuff website), I felt compelled to.

The one-hour doco, which describes itself as “an investigation into disinformation in Aotearoa New Zealand”, got a wholly uncritical tick from its in-house reviewer. But I watched it this morning and came to the conclusion that Fire and Fury (which, incidentally, brazenly pinches its title from a book by American author Michael Woolf about Donald Trump) is part of the very problem the makers purport to deplore.

Let’s start with the positives. Fire and Fury is unquestionably well made. The editing is slick, the photography is first-class (the riot on the last day of the Camp Freedom protest at Parliament has never been more graphically captured) and the music is suitably dark and ominous.

The makers have dug deep, unearthing a wealth of damning video footage and exposing a web of connections between various malignant “influencers” and conspiracy theorists who stand accused of poisoning the public conversation with misinformation and toxic rhetoric.

So it showcases formidable journalistic skills. But to say it’s well made isn’t necessarily, by itself, a ringing commendation. Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi Party’s favourite film-maker, made impressive documentaries too.

As with many propaganda projects (which Fire and Fury is), the producers appear to have started out with a particular premise and set about gathering whatever information and images were necessary to substantiate it. But an equally skilled documentary maker might arguably approach the subject from the reverse direction and come up with something just as persuasive.

Here are some of my misgivings, in no particular order:

■ Fire and Fury paradoxically amplifies messages that the producers tell us are a threat to democracy and national wellbeing. It provides a platform for extremist fringe activists who I suspect will revel in the exposure. If there’s a common characteristic the main players seem to share, it’s that they are egoistical loudmouths and fantasists who are gratified by their notoriety – none more so, I suspect, than Damien De Ment and Kelvyn Alp, founder of the website Counterspin. Fire and Fury gives them more of the oxygen they crave. The documentary will also serve to reinforce their conviction, and that of their followers, that a corrupt mainstream media is deaf to legitimate grievances, has no interest in the truth and is determined to discredit them and suppress their messages. But more on that later.

■ Because the makers set out with a preconceived objective, there’s not even a token attempt at balance, and most notably no attempt to understand what drove the Camp Freedom protesters, many of whom gave the impression of being fairly normal, conservative, middle-class New Zealanders who had never before engaged in protest activity. It’s almost axiomatic in journalism that there are always two sides to a story, yet Fire and Fury makes no attempt to get to the bottom of whatever sense of discontent led an extraordinarily disparate group to converge spontaneously on Wellington from all over the country – an unprecedented phenomenon.

In that respect Fire and Fury is an epic fail because it gets us no closer to comprehending what happened outside Parliament six months ago, possibly because the producers didn’t want to know. Perhaps they convinced themselves that the protesters couldn’t possibly have a valid reason to think the way they do and so the question wasn’t worth asking.  The documentary makers preferred to get the truth, or at least their version of it, from approved voices of the left-wing establishment such as law academic Khylee Quince, Kate Hannah of the Disinformation Project (whose funding isn’t clear from its website, though I suspect we pay for it) and the Australian “misinformation expert” Ed Coper, whose LinkedIn profile indicates he’s well marinated in woke dogma. It goes without saying that none of these people could possibly be suspected of having an ideological agenda of their own – and if they do, we're expected to assume it’s an honourable and righteous one.

Again, this perpetuates the yawning them-and-us gap – no, let’s call it a chasm – and sense of alienation that generated such ill-will toward what was seen during the occupation as an elitist, hostile media. There was no more telling image than that of Trevor Mallard and a press gallery pack looking down on the protesters (that is, looking down both figuratively and literally) from the balcony of Parliament. It was predictably characterised as a Marie Antoinette moment.

■ The reporter and narrator of Fire and Fury, Paula Penfold, doesn't reveal whether she tried to confront any of the figures she identifies as the villains of the piece. She did, however, interrogate a genteel-looking elderly woman who's presented as some sort of public enemy after being caught on camera at the protest telling a media crew to “get out”.  Quite apart from the fact that Penfold chose the softest of targets, challenging the woman to justify herself when she had no obligation to do so (and this in her own home, months after the event) looked perilously close to bullying.  When an experienced TV journalist puts questions to a private citizen unaccustomed to being in the public eye, and has the power to edit the interview in such a way as to emphasise whatever message she wants to convey, there’s never any doubt which side the power is on.

■ Crucially, Fire and Fury doesn’t ask a central question that arises repeatedly: namely, why so many people no longer trust the media. It’s more convenient to leave that particular stone unturned.  Yet distrust of the media was a potent issue at Camp Freedom, as Penfold concedes when she comments: “Since they [the protesters] distrust journalists, they bypass the media entirely.” She goes on to say she and her colleagues have never encountered that level of hostility anywhere in the world. Well, there’s a rather big clue, right there. I deplore threats against anyone lawfully doing their job, but rather than sounding hard done by, Penfold might ask herself how things got to this point.

I have my own ideas about that. I believe the mainstream media in New Zealand have lost sight of what was previously their primary objective, which was to reflect society back to itself and report, as neutrally as possible, on matters of interest and concern to the communities they purported to serve. Instead they have positioned themselves in the front line of the culture wars and put themselves at odds with their diminishing audiences by haranguing them with an ideological agenda largely driven by disaffected minorities. The subjects of Fire and Fury just happen to be the wrong disaffected minorities.

To summarise: While purporting to be concerned about the potential harm done by wacko extremists (and some do have the appearance of being truly wacko), Stuff's big-statement documentary drives another wedge into an already dangerously fractured society. Oh, and by the way: did I mention that it was made with funding from the Public Interest Journalism Fund?